


Motel Los Angeles

by AvilWalker3



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22751632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvilWalker3/pseuds/AvilWalker3
Summary: The Seventh Doctor receives a distress signal; can it wait? Or should the Doctor deprive himself of a cup of tea and a good book?
Kudos: 3





	Motel Los Angeles

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short piece I wrote a few years back that I'm rather proud of to be quite honest, although it's rather short I figured I'd put it up here so others can have a read.

The phone was ringing loudly. It echoed through the room, which was silent, save for the phone and the ambient humming of an engine, akin to that of a submarine.  
Footsteps on metal turned to footsteps on stone, walking quickly and impatiently, and a light brown, tweed jacket swished in time.

“Oh, who is ringing me at this time of night? Don’t they know I’m trying to sleep?” a voice said, emerging from a pair of white, hexagonal doors which opened with an automatic whir, exposing the long, almost identically shaped corridor behind them.

“It better not be Churchill, I told him I didn’t want him to ring me again!” the Doctor groaned, picking up pace to a light jog, shoe heels clicking on the smooth, but unpolished stone floor.  
Reaching the console, a hand reached up and grabbed the small chain dangling just above, yanking it down. It lowered a monitor connected to a scissor chain, one similar to a compact, 1950’s television with white flashing text on it:  


INCOMING TRANSMISSION, COORDINATES RECEIVED.  
It then flashed and changed to:  
EARTH (SOL-3) HUMANIAN ERA, 1969. 34.0500° N, 118.2500° W.  


These two messages looped on the black screen as the face reading them stared confusedly as usual, squinting slightly. Fingers played with three knobs just below, causing it to flicker, become static and then return to its blank, idle state.“Blast!” he grunted in minor frustration, banging his fist on the side of the monitor, causing it to distort for a moment, the coordinates returning in white text on the screen.  


“Ah, much better,” said the Doctor, idly straightening his dark, zig-zag patterned tie. Many controls including levers, switches, buttons and bulbs on the TARDIS console lay still, some gathering dust, some of them burning it. The acrid smell of smoulder hung in the air, caused by some of the lightly coated lights. The bookcases lining one wall however, were mostly dust free; a pink feather duster sat on the third shelf up, in the space that would normally be occupied by a small collection of H.G Wells novels.  


The Time Lord walked slowly around the console, stopping at one of the panels, finger wavering slightly above a number pad array of typewriter keys. He moved to the armchair and table just across the room, a few books stacked neatly on it. _Perhaps a cup of tea as well would make things perfect? _he thought. “Well, it is an emergency transmission…” he glanced up at the screen, still displaying the glowing coordinates and, for a moment, debated whether he should stay put for once.__

__

____

“Never my style really!” he laughed, tapping in the coordinates quickly and pulling down a golden finish railway brake. The Police Box began to materialize in the hallway next to a vending machine, the lights inside flickering slightly as the space next to it was suddenly occupied by an object of similar size. After a moment, one of the doors opened with a slight squeak and out stepped the Doctor, fixing his Panama hat atop his head and idly twirling his umbrella. The immediate haze in the hallway was almost overwhelming. Dust and other airborne things laced the air, forcing the Time Lord to retrieve a handkerchief from his pocket and clasp it over his mouth.  


The phone was ringing loudly. The Doctor almost did not notice the familiar sound and simply stood there for a moment as the noise registered. “I suppose that would be for me…” he commented dryly, starting cautiously down one direction of the hallway. Only one door was open this way, it was the last before the corner turning right and the noise of the telephone came from that direction; but the Doctor had learned over the past centuries that you really shouldn’t trust a lone, open door. He reached for the door nearest to him instead, faded red with a dull, golden doorknob and gripped it, twisting quickly. It was locked.  


__The Doctor sighed, “If only it were that easy,” he muttered to himself, slowly moving towards the open one. It was identical to the one he had just tried. All the doors were and the fact he had landed next to a vending machine gave him some idea of where he was. “A motel, in disrepair, seems like most motels I’ve been to actually, I hope they still do room service.” He spoke to himself quietly, almost whispering, as if there were someone behind him, a companion in better days.__

__The Time Lord stopped just before the open door and gripped his umbrella by the handle. He still loosely clutched the handkerchief in his other hand as he jumped through the doorway with a foolhardy shout._ _

____

____

The storage closet contained nothing but dry buckets and even drier mops. Sighing, he stepped forward, moving his gaze in slow circles at its contents, looking for anything of significance. Without warning, darkness fizzled in and out for a moment. The Doctor shifted his focus to the ceiling bulb, jumping as the door slammed shut in front of him, knocking his hat off his head. The phone continued to ring. 

A sly smile played across his face as he picked the hat off the ground, dusted it, and placed it back where it once sat. “Now that’s more like it.” The Time Lord proceeded back the way he came, surprisingly finding the door unlocked. Glancing past the red haze of light of the vending machine he saw another entrance revealed, a hole in the wall, at the other end of the hall. It was about the size of a bookcase. Peering through, he finally found the source of the ringing, a dirty green rotary phone sitting on a Tambour desk.

The Doctor walked briskly over, honestly sick of the noise, and picked up the receiver, pressing one end to his ear.  
“Hello, is someone there?” asked the voice on the other end.

“Hello? Who is this?” came the Doctor’s reply, voice wavering momentarily in concern.

“No wait, I remember this. Listen: You’ve got to run, get out of there, don’t look away, blink and you’re dead!” There was a pause and the Doctor swore he could hear something before the line went dead. He put the phone down and picked up his umbrella which had been resting against the desk. Turning around he startled himself, realizing what the person on the phone was talking about.

The hole he had come through was now blocked by the bookcase that had once rested there, and in front of it stood a statue of a winged woman in a toga. Her hands were over her face as if she were crying. The Doctor stood still, glaring at it, taking a few cautious steps to the side.

“Oh, of course it had to be you lot! I should have figured this was something you would do!” he said half angrily, half sing-songily, seeming to almost relish the encounter. He glanced around for only a second but when he looked back the statue was half way across the room, its hands lowered and a small smirk crossed the grey lips. The Doctor took a step back, letting out a small cry of surprise before composing himself.

“Y-you know, my friend Ace would probably have tried to blow you up, and I might have let her. She’s quite good at that sort of thing.”

He had to get out. There had to be a door into this room, it wouldn’t make much sense as a motel room otherwise. The Doctor walked slowly over to the red door on the other side of the room, eyes fixated on the statue. He grabbed the knob and twisted. It was locked, but that wouldn’t matter. The Time Lord gripped his umbrella and tried to push the tip into the lock. He gritted his teeth and took his eyes off the statue for only a second to wrench the makeshift tool upwards. The lock broke, and so did the umbrella, the tip stuck in the keyhole as the rest crumpled in his hand.

Looking back up, the statue had moved. It was now just a foot away from him, mouth open wide, revealing rows of sharp and snarling stone teeth. The Doctor gasped and fell, pushing the door open with his weight and into the hallway. He stood up, backing away slowly, eyes still fixated on the statue, then the doorway, then the door itself as he glanced behind for a moment. When he looked back, he could see the hand and head peering around the edge of the door, almost taunting him.

“N-now you stop it!” he shouted, shakily pointing his finger at it and taking a hesitant step forward. “I will not be bullied by a creature as lowly as a Weeping Angel!”  
The Time Lord coughed coarsely, falling back again, and clasped a hand over his face, having lost the handkerchief. He looked back again, now only a metre or so away from the TARDIS, but a metre could mean anything right now. Foot after foot, starting a nervous stumble he felt the doors on his back and turned around, taking a key shakily out of his pocket. Glancing over his shoulder the Doctor could see the Angel fully now, a few feet away from the red door it was once coiled around, its arms sprawled towards him, claw like, stone fingernails at the end of its hands.

He fiddled with the key trying to insert it in the lock, looking away from the creature once more he dropped it. The Time Lord let out a panicked gasp and fell to his knees, fingers fumbling as he picked it back up and stabbed the small piece of metallic hope into its slot, twisting sharply. The blue door yielded and swung open as the Doctor hurried inside, hoping that the Angel would not move fast enough to so much as touch him but at the same time, swearing to himself that he could feel something against his back.

He tried shutting the door behind him, pressing the entirety of his weight against it. But as he did, a stone arm blocked it, a smooth, grey wrist and clawed hand reached inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor stood back; eyes wide open in panic as he slowly walked backwards towards the console. His hands found the TARDIS console and more importantly, the wide array of controls on it. The Time Lord’s fingers wrapped shakily around a red T-bar lever and he pulled it down in haste. The door closed fully with incredible force, severing the hand cleanly from the rest of the Angel. The Doctor let out a grand sigh of relief, walking over to the stone appendage.

“Hermetic Seal, nothing’s getting through those doors for a while,” he said cheerily, picking up the stone hand off the floor and dropping it in a waste bin nearby which glowed a bright green for a few seconds after receiving new trash. It was at this point, that something began banging on the doors.

_Once. Twice. Two beats. Three beats a second. Three beats? ___

____

____

All colour drained from the Doctor’s face and his lips formed to a gobsmacked gibber. “M-more than one…?” It was a distinct possibility, Angels rarely stayed in place alone; goodness knows how many could be in the motel. “I need to send out a distress call, get people to stay away from this place!” he shouted to himself.

The Doctor returned to the console, pulling down the hand brake once more as the TARDIS took off to points unknown. Picking up the phone and activating the communications system, pressing the receiver to his ear. And then someone picked up on the other end.  
“Hello, is someone there?” the Doctor asked, barely waiting for a reply before continuing. “No wait, I remember this. Listen: You’ve got to run, get out of there, don’t look away, blink and you’re dead!”

There was a loud, electrifying crackle and the Time Lord hadn’t time to say anything else, merely a realizing _Oh…_ , before blue energy enveloped the console and released in an explosive arc. He was sent flying across the room, crashing into the dusted bookshelves, the entirety of C.S Lewis’ works falling on his head and in his lap. His Panama hat was scorched beyond repair, as was his tie, his hair frizzled but apart from that he was alright.

The Doctor stood up, dashing over to the console to assess the damage. The room was still and it appeared the TARDIS had managed to safely land after the emergency. He let out another grand sigh and looked over at the books and his armchair nearby.

“Perhaps a cup of tea would make things perfect." 


End file.
